


A sneeze.

by Emerald_Mischief



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, How Do I Tag, I Don't Even Know, Mentions of Anxiety, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, mentions of Loki - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 04:50:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7345627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emerald_Mischief/pseuds/Emerald_Mischief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes when the world is happens too much, Tony Stark likes to read books he's collected for months. But silence can be a lot louder than saving the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A sneeze.

**Author's Note:**

> I got a book last week that gave me 600+ prompts to write about, this is one of them. It was fun. There may be more like this as I'm trying to break free of my writers block. I don't have a clue if I did any of this right, this format of posting fics is completely new to me so...Thanks in advance for reading and I hope you enjoy me babbling about nerd babies.

It was a particularly quiet, calm evening at home, the tv wasn’t on, the windows were shut, most of the lights were off. Tony sat at his desk, not the one in the basement like normal, but the actual desk he had in his actual office, which was very large and hardly used. He was hovering over a book, not some scientific one or one that involved complex math problems, no, it was just a novel he hadn’t gotten to read. He liked reading for fun and sometimes he preferred it to the rush he got reading something for knowledge. It was calming to read page after page of someone else’s ideas and moments, the hilarious points of simple interaction between characters, the relatable heartbreak and questions about the universe. He liked when he didn’t have to answer those questions because it wasn’t being asked of him to, he liked watching these muses play out their own story much more than he liked watching movies, sometimes, they didn’t answer all his questions. He didn’t like cliff hangers, which is why he waited until everything was said and done to pick up a book series so he would know, that when he picked it up it surely had an ending. Unlike a lot of things in Tony’s life, books never disappointed him, or rather the books he chose never did because he had great taste in everything, but most importantly..they never disappointed him because they were always there. Even if he left the book at home, he could find it elsewhere, online, or just travel to a book store and buy a new one. It was universal. Books. 

Silence and calm weren’t universal though, it was rare, incredibly so in his life, it was always so loud, there was always too much chaos, too many questions that never had a real tangible answer. He couldn’t just look up what was happening in his head and have it make perfect sense, cure him of his worries, no, it was all speculation, humans weren’t science. Humans weren’t as predictable as math. Humans had no instruction manual. No reset button that could be jammed a billion times when things went wrong. No diagnostics print outs to fix the problem. No. Humans were complicated otherworldly bionics that didn’t follow any sort of rules or regulations, organic or not, Tony didn’t even understand his own mind. He understood a few good things, books, which was mentioned, pizza, pizza was good because of the care people put into making it, not tearing the dough, making sure the cheese doesn’t burn, the correct amount of spices in the sauce so it makes your tongue tingle. Tony understood booze, he understood the Iron Man suits, he understood his computer, doesn’t stop him from wanting to smash it to see what the real issue is though, when he does, he fixes it. Tony understood why the grass was green, why the sky was blue, what clouds are made of, why water was wet and air was dry and what was the difference between a solid, a liquid and a gas but Tony did not understand the human brain. 

Especially his own. So when his hands began to shake, reading the same line of the book he was trying so hard to concentrate on over and over and over again, he growled at himself, slamming the book down. He couldn’t even imagine what he just read, he couldn’t tell you what the past 3 pages were about, it was like he was on autopilot without any knowledge of who hit the damn button. Nothing was in focus anymore, all he could hear was the imaginary noises of bombs and bullets and shouting that was on repeat in the back of his head and then silence. Silence. Dead silence. Space silence. The kind of silence that makes you wonder if you’ve suddenly gone deaf, it physically pained him to not hear a damn thing. His room was too quiet suddenly, peace and quiet, silence and calm, stillness...it wasn’t good anymore. It was okay before but not now, he kept opening and closing his hands, the silent mantra to just keep breathing was a broken record.. Anxiety and bad health issues, too much alcohol, too much shrapnel, not enough living in peace with the redhead who left him because he created _exactly_ what he feared most. 

That’s when he heard it. A soft, almost childlike sneeze. He froze for a beat before turning in his chair, looking towards the door, he frowned at the person standing there, even harder when the second sneeze didn’t come from them. A cat, curled up adorably in the brawny blond Vikings arms, all black fur and green eyes, looked soaked to the bone from the rain beating outside their windows onto the perfectly manicured lawn and precisely laid flower beds full of almost blooming, planted too late for spring flowers. 

“It was pawing at the door. I did not feel it was right to keep it out in the rain.” Thor spoke in a hushed tone, he gazed down at the fur ball that was curled against his side, sniffing his night shirt as to gauge where he came from. “Good move, maybe that’s what we need.” a pet. “A cat?” asked the thunderer, adorably, he wondered if Thor had ever had a pet that wasn’t with another purpose. Birds, cats, dogs, horses...What kind of people were Asgardians? “A pet. Something that listens and doesn’t talk back, that loves unconditionally as long as you feed it, bathe it, keep it warm. Sort of like team mates but with much less sass.” he snorted, getting up to walk over to his bathroom, the lights turned on the moment he crossed the threshold, he grabbed a black towel and left the bathroom, whom’s lights went off the moment he walked back out of it. “Give it here.” he urged the larger man, towel out and ready for the wet feline with sparkling jade eyes. Thor watched with a gaze that could only be summed up with one word, love, he saw something in that cat that he was looking for, maybe because it looked so much like his brother he found himself fond of it the creature already. Tony wrapped it up gently, cradling it against his chest and warmed up the slightly shivering animal by rubbing its slightly too thin back, “yeah, maybe that’s what we need.” Thor responded, nodding softly and smiling at Tony. 

He didn’t bid the genius goodnight as he walked away, he just nodded before heading back to his own meager room that he sometimes inhabited since his relationship with Jane too went down the crapper. Tony found himself pacing the room, rubbing the cats back through the towel, the cat didn’t move much at all except for the occasional sniffle at his face and shirt, he couldn’t feel claws but he could feel kneading, he could hear purring under his ear.

Suddenly the room wasn’t so quiet, he wasn’t alone, nothing was too much anymore. All it took was a sneeze.


End file.
